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Did he really trade his homers for his doubles? Or did his homers turn into doubles because his power numbers were down? In the same way we look for doubles as an indicator of future power for prospects, Ortiz's power is on the other side of the curve?

I guess I can give a more substantive answer, though I think the fact that David Ortiz is setting career highs in OPS+, EqA, and MLVr is damning evidence against the insinuation that he's declining.

1) Ortiz added a lot of batting average as well as exchanging HR for 2B. That suggests a real change in approach, and it is backed up by statements from the manager and from Ortiz about he hasn't been able to drive the ball because of his knee problems. That's not decline, it's adjustment to a temporary problem.
2) Very rarely is power the first thing to go for a hitter like Ortiz, certainly not a decline in power paired to a high batting average. A decline into high-BB, high-K, medium-HR seasons is the most likely. You're really grasping at straws here, which is why I took it as fanboy wishcasting.

i dunno it looks like to me that ortiz isn't as good this year (likely just bc of injuries) but hes getting luckier than usual. his babip is pretty high. PrOPS has him as one of the luckiest hitters in the league

next year he'll probably be healthy and put up a season that looks pretty close to an average of his 2005-2007 years which is of course great

I think SJ may actually have a point here. Now whether it was injury related or not is an open question, but there are real signs of decline in Ortiz, in spite of the fact that he was more productive than ever.

Last year he was relatively unlucky on balls in play - PrOPS has him hitting around .308 last year. This year was relatively lucky. The combination of being unlucky one year, and then lucky the next gives the false impression of a progression. The underlying elements just aren't there however. His K rate just didn't decline by enough to make us think that he's really become a .333 hitter. PrOPS suggests pretty strongly that it's not like he was just hitting the ball better this year either - the underlying elements of his batting average dropped, not rose.

The hope is that next year, as he probably settles back to being a .300-.310 hitter or so, that he's healthy, and 20 or so of those doubles go for homers. It is not that he settles into being a .333 hitter. It's just not going to happen.

Last year he was relatively unlucky on balls in play - PrOPS has him hitting around .308 last year. This year was relatively lucky. The combination of being unlucky one year, and then lucky the next gives the false impression of a progression.

Maybe it's luck and maybe it's not. It could be because last year he was hitting everything into the shift, and lately he's intentionally going the other way more.

PrOPS is DIPS for hitters - an interesting number that has somehow been misidentified as the true and near-perfect measure of reality. "Luck" remains a bullshit dump in baseball analysis, despite the obvious reality of unpredictable variation.

Here, for example, are Carl Crawford's and Ichiro Suzuki's PrOPS / OPS over the last four years:

Crawford
707 / 820
768 / 830
736 / 800
720 / 781

Ichiro
722 / 826
747 / 786
792 / 786
752 / 869

Obviously Big Papi isn't exactly all that similar to Crawford or Ichiro, but wwb offers a possible connection - intelligent hitting against the shift could increase the BA value of groundballs and line drives without shifting the underlying ratios that much.

David Ortiz beat his career average BABIP by a good amount, and usually weird things like that don't stick. (The same being true of the drop in HR/FB). But reducing all of it to luck and not searching out underlying causes doesn't make any sense to me as an analytic move.

David Ortiz beat his career average BABIP by a good amount, and usually weird things like that don't stick. (The same being true of the drop in HR/FB). But reducing all of it to luck and not searching out underlying causes doesn't make any sense to me as an analytic move.

1. Nobody has offered any evidence of underlying causes.

2. Nobody has claimed that PrOPS is a true and near perfect measure of reality.

3. What the hell do Crawford and Ichiro have to do with Papi? Do we have any reason to believe that any of the three of them are "intelligent" hitters?

4. This is the first year that Ortiz has beaten his PrOPS. Did he just this year become an intelligent hitter?

God, this thread is about to get miserable. We love Ortiz, so naturally, people want to find some reason to ignore the single most obvious explanation... Obviously there could be more than just luck involved, but the intro and the first three posts didn't make any mention of the possibility of luck, when in fact, all else being equal, it's the most compelling explanation.

Here, for example, are Carl Crawford's and Ichiro Suzuki's PrOPS / OPS over the last four years:

prOPS fails for high-speed hitters because they convert GB's into hits at a higher rate than the population as a whole. I wouldn't worry too much about that problem when it comes to Ortiz.

EDIT: and it also fails for hitters that convert GB's into hits at a super-low rate...but I'm not convinced that Ortiz is one of those, since he's a lefty. Actually, my hunch is that Ortiz's GB hit rate is all fouled up because of the Williams Shift.

1) I really doubt that PrOPS is totally great for everyone else, but just fails on one subgroup. That seems a weak case.
2) I never said that unpredictable variation wasn't a part of Ortiz' success. (It should be noted that the "pessimistic" case on Ortiz, that PrOPS is perfect and the difference is luck, puts Ortiz at 970, sixth in the league.)
3) Oh my god, look at the leaderboard! It thinks Jack Cust is a .300 hitter.
4) Back to my point here... what wwp and others are suggesting is that Big Papi is a weird player because almost every opposing defense does the full shift on him. In a year when he wasn't able to drive the ball for home runs like he used to, it seems reasonable to think that he focused more on hitting for average, and he'd have some weird opportunities for hits because of the shift, if he chose to take advantage of them.

EDIT: link to PrOPS doesn't work - it has a bracket in it that screws up the coding. Here's the stats page.

1 & 3 - The tendency of PrOPS is to underrate fast guys, and overrate slow guys. This does not help the case that Ortiz has really changed the kind of hitter he is.

2 - You certainly didn't mention the possibility of luck when you endorsed the optimistic intro in post 3. Your post in 6 also said: "Ortiz added a lot of batting average as well as exchanging HR for 2B. That suggests a real change in approach" - not mentioning the possibility that the increase in batting average was at least partly due to luck.

4. That's an interesting theory. At this point, I don't see it as anything else however. I've seen no evidence to support it presented at all.

And, of course, no one's offered any evidence of luck that doesn't run afoul of the ecological fallacy. That doesn't mean it isn't random or unpredictable variation. But it does mean that the above is an odd tack for defenders of the "luck" thesis to take.

1 & 3 - The tendency of PrOPS is to underrate fast guys, and overrate slow guys. This does not help the case that Ortiz has really changed the kind of hitter he is.

It's based on the premise that hitters do not differ in the ability to "hit 'em where they ain't." Like with the "pitchers do not differ in their effect on the outcome of balls in play" thesis, I find this wildly unlikely on its face.

I'm not denying the effects of randomness. I'm questioning our certitude that we know how to measure the effects of randomness, and I'm arguing that we're only doing so by assuming things about the game of baseball (all groundballs are created equal) that everyone knows aren't really true.

Ortiz will be healthy next year, and he'll go back to driving the ball to right into, and preferable over the shift in almost all situations. The circumstances which in part led to Ortiz' overperformance will disappear next year (I hope).

I'm not denying the effects of randomness. I'm questioning our certitude that we know how to measure the effects of randomness, and I'm arguing that we're only doing so by assuming things about the game of baseball (all groundballs are created equal) that everyone knows aren't really true.

Nobody has claimed any certitude here. In fact, everyone, including the creator of PrOPS, has discussed its shortcomings.

We have affirmative, albeit not conclusive evidence that luck played a big part in Ortiz' performance. I have yet to see any evidence presented that Ortiz using the shift to his advantage had anything to do with it. Did Ortiz hit significantly better against the shift this year that he did in previous years for instance?

Ortiz will be healthy next year, and he'll go back to driving the ball to right into, and preferable over the shift in almost all situations. The circumstances which in part led to Ortiz' overperformance will disappear next year (I hope).

are you serious

if his supposed new approach is so great that he can have his best season ever with it despite being gimpy all year, then why would he revert back to his old ways next year

That does explain his homer run decline, but it doesn't explain the .333 batting average.

Random variation. How often does a 295 true talent level guy hit 330?

Over the last 2000 PA's he has been a 295 hitter.

It's somewhat reasonable to expect him to be a better than 295 hitter if he cut down on his swing in some circumstance as evidence by the press clippings, lowering of K rate from 21 to 18.5 and reduction of infield flys from 8.2 to 4.4. Not 330, but better than 295. And some of it is normal variation.

I see no reason to think Papi is in decline. Manny, I'm not so sure about.

I would also like to point out Ortiz Sept has got his clutch numbers right up to where they had been in previous years. His WPI/LI is right back near the top of the AL, in a dead heat with A-rod, which is suprising. A-rod is still the MVP by a good margin, but in most years Papi would be the most deserving player in the AL when you look at the totality of his output.

Things like HR power and BA do just sometimes fluctuate for consistently excellent ballplayers. Look at Willie Mays 1954-1965. Parks and eras changed over that decade+, for sure, but the biggest fluctuations in Mays's record don't coincide with moving parks or the 1962/63 "era boundary." His average went between .300 and .340 in the Polo Grounds. He lost 15 HR suddenly in the Polo Grounds and then a few years later picked up 20 in two years at Candlestick.

The null hypothesis is that Ortiz is an outstanding hitter whose record isn't identical from one year to the next. As to predicting a decline, he will be 32 in a few weeks and is most uncommonly fat. The safe money is on him not being this good at 37, but at 32, I wouldn't bet against him being right in the same 160-170 OPS+ range again.

We're debating between a 970 OPS and a 1070 OPS. I don't see anything wrong with saying that this has been the best year of David Ortiz's career, that it's amazing what he's done with a gimpy knee. It seems obvious he's changed his approach. This will lead to unexpected outcomes.

Am I saying he's a "true" 1070 hitter? Of course not. "True" talent is a chimera, wholly non-existent, and thus never knowable. My bet is that if Ortiz tried to keep hitting this way, eventually other teams would adjust their defenses - how best to hit into a shift is a massively complex problem, and its outcomes just aren't particularly predictable. I don't understand JBH's belief that Ortiz can keep doing this forever - new scouting reports will arise, new adjustments will have to be made.

I was responding to SJ's decision to read 2007 as a possible decline. This requires (a) fully accepting PrOPS despite all the problems that bibigon keeps acknowledging and (b) reading a 970 OPS as a sign of decline, or making assumptions about luck that go even beyond PrOPS.

I think SJ may actually have a point here. Now whether it was injury related or not is an open question, but there are real signs of decline in Ortiz, in spite of the fact that he was more productive than ever.

I see no reason believe their is any decline here. You have a guy who has changed his approach, due to injury that has resulted in a different shape of the output.

The fact that he is hitting 330 is variation,to some extent, but who cares. You don't need crap, I mean props to determine that. Look at historic performance and it tells you that. Then look at the composition of his output - less K's less pop ups and you see that it looks like their was some cutting down on his swing. Which leads credence to the lip service we are hearing.

I see no reason to buy into he is beating the shift more, look at his hit charts. But their is evidence that ortiz cut down his k rate.

I see no reason believe their is any decline here. You have a guy who has changed his approach, due to injury that has resulted in a different shape of the output.

Ok, I called it a hope that he'd come back healthy and bring back another 20 HRs - you seem to have more confidence. We don't disagree with regards to the shape of the data. The relevant question for me is whether the batting average increase was real (and I agree, we don't need PrOPS to determine that - but it doesn't hurt).

The larger question of if he's in decline depends on his health. That's a question I didn't intend to wade into, since it's sort of an unknowable.

Eh, I thought about this while I was driving around NOVA. If he is going to left more, more towering fly balls to left would be an easy explanation for the jump in doubles, while not neccesarily signaling a decline in HR production.

Anyone have any idea how many of Ortiz's balls to left would have been a) out in most parks, b)homers in most parks?

A-rod is still the MVP by a good margin, but in most years Papi would be the most deserving player in the AL when you look at the totality of his output.

Ortiz is having a great year, but I will take a guy who caught 136 games with a OPS+ of 160 over a guy who played 7 games in the field with an ops+ of 174.

If you ask most nonpartisans on this board, I think they would agree with me.

Ortiz is having a great year, but I will take a guy who caught 136 games with a OPS+ of 160 over a guy who played 7 games in the field with an ops+ of 174.

Posada hasn't been nearly the hitter that Ortiz has been. Not to take anything away from Jorge who has been a beast, but they really have been at completely different levels. Ortiz has played nearly 20% more often, has produced at a considerably higher rate and his performance has been leveraged at almost 3x more by WPA/LI.

I disagree with this statement. He might have that many more ABs, but catchers play more. Most DHs are measured as defense neutral, which I don't think is fair to players that play the other half, in this case, Ortiz is being compared to a player who plays the most demanding of all defensive positions. To get that level of production from that position is enormously valuable.

agree with this statement. He might have that many more ABs, but catchers play more.

Your quibbling. Ortiz has nearly 20% more PA's. The point of my statement was the value with the bat Ortiz provides over Posada is larger than you implied. Sure Posada gets extra credit for standing behind the plate, its just not enough IMHO. But anyway it's irrelevant, and not relevent to the discussion at hand.

Who would you vote for between Ortiz and Posada in the MVP race is, it seems to me, as much about how you rate players as it is about their actual talents. Obviously that's true in all cases, but I think this is basically an extreme.

I think when considering Posada's place in the runner-up-to-A-Rod sweepstakes, it's worth noting just how thin the talent level at catcher is right now. The other day in a game thread I noted that Varitek had the fifth-highest OPS among big league catchers with more than 400 ABs.

In other words, the offensive drop-off from Posada to all other catchers this year is enormous.

Ortiz is probably a better catcher than Posada. Not sure why we're comparing those two though.

I think the concerns raised by bib and others about Ortiz's high BA being luck are valid. From watching Ortiz, it seemed to me that early in the season he was doing his usual thing, but when he kept coming up short on his HR swing, he tried to alter his style, opting to hit more linedrives. But that's certainly what I would have wanted to see, so it could have just been my biases. Probably somewhere in between.

I'm not sure why MCOA is reacting so strongly against the using PrOPS in a common-sense manner. I mean, it's intuitive to me that: a) linedrives/flyballs/grounders/etc tend to a pretty good job of predicting the results of BIP; b) fast players get more hits on certain types of BIP than you'd expect and slow players usually get less; and c) guys who perform way over expectations are likely to come back down. No one is making out to be a perfect stat, just a piece of evidence in one direction.

I'm an O's fan but I love Papi. I actually bought an Ortiz t-shirt while in Boston for a conference in the summer of '04. Unfortunately he didn't play in the game I managed to get tix for - they were still semi-platooning him back then.

Still? He'll certainly be up there, but I suspect Detroit's disappointing finish will hurt him bigtime with the writers. It'll be interesting to see whether Ortiz passes him. Posada probably gets hurt in the voting by being on the same team as A-Rod.

Edit: I hadn't noticed that Ortiz is now third in the AL in home runs. And I knew Carlos Pena had had a good season, but... wow.

Bill James writes about players having unexpectedly high batting averages in years where they somehow alter their swing to compensate for an injury. I can't remember which player's comment it's in, but he goes on to give several examples of this.

Of course, I don't think anyone would reasonably expect Ortiz to hit .330 next year, would they? Besides, even if you dock him the 35 points to his "baseline" of .295 and the power remains at this year's level, he's hitting what, .295/.420/.570? I'll take it.

Great post, nice job Darren. I also agree with everything in the intro.

The fact Ortiz hasn't been mentioned by ANYONE in the media for MVP, or at least as the runner up to A-rod, is completely ridiculous. Those guys really do love the long-ball. Ortiz has had a superb season, and has heated up in September, as explained above for the team with the best "record" (w/ tiebreakers) in baseball. I am thrilled with Mike Lowell's contributions this season but can't anyone with a microphone look who has been on base for all of his non-HR RBIs.

If he is going to left more, more towering fly balls to left would be an easy explanation for the jump in doubles, while not neccesarily signaling a decline in HR production.

His hit chart on MLB.com doesn't enlighten us on how many balls were off the wall, or whether they were "towering". But go ahead out there and look at his XBH chart for 2006 compared to 2007. By my count in 2006 there were 10 on or near the wall (1 HR, 1 triple, 8 doubles). In 2007 there were 20 (1 HR, 19 doubles). To right field, starting at the wall between the two bullpens and going to the RF pole, he hit eleven home runs in 2006; in 2007, eleven again.

The big negative difference was on HR to straightaway center: something like 7 last year, 2 this year. Maybe some of the doubles off the right end of the LF wall are some of his old HRs coming up short in '07, but they could also have been high off the wall, and thus HRs in any other park. If anything, though, looking at everything near the wall it looks like he made a greater effort to take pitches the other way in 2007 - and he took 'em deep.